14 BULLETIN UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SUEVEY. 



and better adapted for portrayal were taken for the calendar ; the cri- 

 terion being not that they were of national moment, but were of national 

 notoriety. 



Fig. 10, 1809. — A chief, "Little Beaver", set fire to a trading-store and 

 was killed. The character is simply his totem. Like the ghost of King 

 Hamlet, "he wore his beaver up". 



Fig. 11, 1810. — Black Stone made medicine. Sir William Blackstone 

 was accused of "making law" in his Commentaries, but this is not a 

 similar accusation against his namesake for innovation on the "regular 

 practice" of medicine. The "medicine-men" have no connection with 

 therapeutics, feel no pulses, and administer no drugs, or, if sometimes 

 they direct the internal or external use of some secret preparation, 

 it is as a part of, and with main reliance upon, superstitious ceremonies, 

 in which they "put forth the charm of woven paces and of waving 

 hands", utter wild cries, and muddle in blood and much filth until they 

 work themselves into an epileptic condition. Their incantations are 

 not only to drive away disease, but for many other purposes, such as to 

 obtain success in war, avert calamity, and very frequently to bring 

 within reach the bulfalo, on which the Sioux depend for food. The 

 rites are clearly those of Shamanism, and form another link between the 

 North American Indians and the North Asiatic tribes. Symbol — the 

 man-figure, with the head of an albino buffalo held over his own. In the 

 ceremonial of "making medicine", a buifalo head always holds a promi- 

 nent place. 



Fig. 12, 1811.— The Dakotas fought a battle with the Gros Ventres 

 and killed a great many. Symbol — a circle inclosing three round ob- 

 jects with flat bases, resembling heads severed from trunks, which latter 

 the lithograph shows too minute in this symbol for suggestion of what 

 they probably represent ; but they appear more distinct in Fig. 65 as 

 the heads of enemies slain in battle. In the sign-language of the plains, 

 the Sioux are always denoted by drawing a hand across the throat, sig- 

 nifying that they cut the throats of their enemies. The Dakotas count 

 by the fingers, as is common to most races, but with a peculiarity of 

 their own. When they have gone over the fingers and thumbs of both 

 hands, one finger is temporarily turned down for one ten. At the end of 

 the next ten, another finger is turned, and so on to a hundred. Opawinge, 

 one hundred, is derived from patvinga, "to go around in circles", or 

 " make gyrations", and contains the idea that the round of all the fingers 

 has again been made for their respective tens. So the circle is never 

 used for less than one hundred, but sometimes signifies an indefinite num- 

 ber greater than a hundred. The symbol in this instance therefore, 

 though at first sight purely arbitrary, clearly expresses the killing in 

 battle of many enemies. 



There are two wholly distinct tribes called by the Canadians Gros 

 Ventres. One, known also as Minnetarees, is classed in the Dakota 

 family, and numbered in 1804, according to Lewis and Clarke, 2,500 



